LITMIR.BIZ

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almost over. His tired brain tried to process doing all the Nevers, and the first thing he could think of was the chance at running into Gretchen more often. He grabbed a chunk of his muffin and chewed on it.

      Julia was eyeing the list, chewing on her lip. He did one of those mouth-shrug-raised-eyebrow things that meant, “Sure, why not?” Which he immediately regretted when Julia spoke again.

      “Mom’ll probably want to be here to see her daughter go to the prom with the prom king. Side note: You’re definitely running for prom king.”

      Muffin crumbs fell out of his mouth. “Is that so?”

      “Yeah. That hasn’t happened yet, right?” She tapped the girl next to her on the arm. “When do we vote for prom king stuff?”

      Margot—petite, nerdy, shy—had never looked so confused in her life. “Uhh, prom, I think?”

      Julia turned back to Dave. “We’ll have to research with Brett. I’m already seeing big things for your campaign. Fund-raising galas.” Her leg started racing up and down under the table. She was radiant when she got excited about something. Her mouth scrunched over to one side of her face but somehow remained a smile. It was indescribably cute.

      He watched her eyes go wide, a smile that was about ninety-five percent mischief spreading her thin lips. “Marroney. Number seven.” Her finger pointed at the line. Never hook up with a teacher.

      “You can’t be serious.”

      “Why wouldn’t I be?”

      “Julia, the man collects food in his mustache. He wears pocket protectors, which I’m pretty certain have been out of production since the eighties, right around the time his kind-of-sometimes mullet-hairdo thing went out of style. He makes jokes about irrational numbers. He’s a total cliché of a math teacher. I’m almost certain that he’s not a real person; he’s Frankenstein’s monster but made up of math-teacher clichés. I heard a rumor that he’s got all the known numbers of pi tattooed on his ass.”

      “That’s a stupid rumor. And I can’t wait until I undress him and dispel it once and for all.”

      Dave was mostly sure the comment was a joke, but he still felt a pang of jealousy. The bell rang, and everyone gathered their belongings, rushing toward the door as if already free for the day. Jenny Owens said, “Shit,” and tried to scribble in a few last-second answers.

      Julia stood up, folding the Nevers list neatly and grabbing her belongings. She stepped into her sandals and gave Ms. Romero a little wave as they walked out into the hallway. Dave followed behind, still trying to figure out if Julia was joking.

      o o o

      “I’ve never been a stalker before,” Dave said. They waited for the Chili’s hostess to find them a table near where Marroney and a handful of other teachers had gathered to enjoy a Friday afternoon happy hour.

      “This isn’t stalking. This is organizing a coincidental run-in.”

      “That’s a stalkerish way to put it.”

      After obsessing for the rest of the week over how to best seduce Marroney (Dave shuddered every time she said it), Julia declared Friday to be a Never day. After school, they’d go to Julia’s house and dye their hair in a bright display of their individuality—individuality purchased from a box at the CVS. But before they could do that, Julia and Marroney had to have their meet-cute. “Prepare for a lot of flirtatious giggling and some charming repartee,” Julia had said when they were outside the school, waiting for Marroney to leave so they could follow him. “And that’ll just be coming from him.”

      Now Dave watched Marroney struggle to find the straw in his margarita, his tongue flicking out blindly. He wondered if Julia would call her own bluff anytime soon. Marroney was wearing a mustard-colored short-sleeved button-up shirt with a coffee stain on his collar. His tie had little calculators on it. Five other teachers were at the table, including Ms. Romero and Dave’s AP Chem teacher, Mr. Kahn. Each of them had a giant fluorescent-colored frozen margarita in front of them.

      Dave and Julia sat in a booth perpendicular to the teachers so they could both see as the teachers delved into a bottomless basket of chips and salsa. On his first attempt, a fat blob of red salsa fell from Marroney’s chips and landed squarely on his tie.

      “You know, I didn’t get it at first,” Dave said, turning to look at Julia, who was smiling in Marroney’s direction, “but you’re right. This has the makings of a great seduction.”

      “Your tone says you’re trying to be sarcastic, but I’m failing to understand the joke.”

      “Julia, he’s hideous.”

      “That’s an ugly thing to say.” Julia picked up her menu and propped it up so she could stare without being caught. “Okay, so here’s the plan.” She leaned across the table conspiratorially, refusing to speak until Dave leaned down, too. It was their classic pose for plotting mischief; they’d done it when figuring out which movie to go to, or when planning the surprise party for Julia’s dads. They’d huddled together like this when they wrote the Nevers on their bench in Morro Bay. Dave loved seeing the details on her fingers when she put them flat on the table in front of her, the way her orangey smell seemed stronger in just those instances. They always adopted a tone more serious than was called for, whispering to each other, craning their necks around, pretending to study the room skittishly, as if someone was after them. The rest of the world felt exterior to them, like their friendship was some idyllic cove only they had access to.

      “We wait until he gets up to use the bathroom.”

      “You are getting creepier by the minute,” Dave whispered.

      “Listen,” she hissed. “When the romantic interest has been isolated—”

      “You mean the victim.”

      “David Gostkowski, you interrupt me again and I’ll dye your hair bright green.”

      “Isn’t that happening anyway?”

      “We wait until he gets up to use the bathroom,” Julia said, her eyes getting big, warning Dave to keep quiet. “At which point, we follow.” She stole a glance over the menu to look in Marroney’s direction again. He was halfway done with his margarita, sprinkles of salt on his mustache catching the light and shimmering. The table was already getting louder, breaking up into a couple of conversations. It was curious to see them behave so much like students in a classroom. “Your job,” Julia continued, “will be to go into the men’s room and make sure no one else is there. When you’ve cleared it, you give me the signal by starting a dance-off, and I go in.”

      “What happens once you corner him in the bathroom?”

      “Flirtation,” Julia said, drawing the word out long under her breath. It was easy to forget what she was talking about. No one could make him laugh like she could, even if it was hidden away like this, the laughter quiet but understood between them. How had he not learned to be happy with just this? How had he not managed to stifle the desire for more?

      “This is by far one of your best plans.”

      “I appreciate that,” she said, ignoring his sarcasm. “But you’re clearly forgetting the snow fort I designed freshman year.”

      “We live in California, Jules.”

      “Just because it never snowed doesn’t mean it wasn’t a fantastic fort. The planning itself was pitch-perfect; it was the execution that, at no fault of mine, fell short.” She smacked her palms down on the table and looked over at the teachers. “We’re getting away from the point. I need to do what many a teenage girl has done before and seduce the sexy older man.”

      Dave stole a glance at the side of her face and then joined in spying on them. They’d decimated the chips and were raising their hands, looking around for their waitress to ask for refills. Mr. Kahn was polishing off his first margarita and grimacing from a brain freeze. “Shocking that none of them

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